Tom you are not talking with a novice here...I'm an audio dealer myself and have been in this business for over 25 years, first as an enthusiast and later a little more involved on it...

If you disagree just go to Part Express and Madisound, just two of them, an check for high-end drivers from Vifa, Peerless, Morel, Seas, Dayton, HiVi, Dynavox, and even Chinese drivers, etc...and see the prices, with technologies more sophisticated than titanium and aluminum cones...Peerless has right now similar aluminum drivers for less and God knows about performance, I have not tested them...The tweeter from the Alesis monitor ones, that are excellent tweeters BTW, are right now in Parts Express for $8.00 in a buyout, my brother have the monitor ones and let me tell you that those are reference monitors for any decent setup or in any decent studio...AV123 and even some projects from PE done by D'Appolito sounds very good for the money and employs drivers that rival if not better any Axiom drivers for less...Remeber that just because one company manufacture drivers, doesn't make them better than others, to manufacture drivers is indeed a way of lower costs in some cases and in others just to get a reliable quality and availability overtime...and rarely about the specs...driver technologies are about a century old now if not more...

Read here a little over the lines, from the engineer of McIntosh Audio:

Those prices are IMO symbolic prices to stop upgraditis, and force to buy the new models, that God knows if indeed sound better...we are trusting their ears not ours...and do not forget that audio is not just a sum of elements, geometry, real state, of the room etc...plays a very important role in the sound at the end....I have seen very good speakers sod miserable in odd shaped rooms, while others less expensive will shine

Edited by Sovkiller (07/14/1011:06 PM)

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No doubt that getting older is madatory, but to mature still remains optional...Join the M80's team!

Perhaps if Axiom manufactured drivers on the scales that these other companies do, they could get their unit prices down to competitive levels. The current reality is that they do not. I highly doubt they're gouging consumers -- which is implicit in your criticism -- with their current driver prices.

Tom you are not talking with a novice here...I'm an audio dealer myself and have been in this business for over 25 years, first as an enthusiast and later a little more involved on it...

If you disagree just go to Part Express and Madisound, just two of them, an check for high-end drivers from Vifa, Peerless, Morel, Seas, Dayton, HiVi, Dynavox, and even Chinese drivers, etc...and see the prices, with technologies more sophisticated than titanium and aluminum cones...Peerless has right now similar aluminum drivers for less and God knows about performance, I have not tested them...The tweeter from the Alesis monitor ones, that are excellent tweeters BTW, are right now in Parts Express for $8.00 in a buyout, my brother have the monitor ones and let me tell you that those are reference monitors for any decent setup or in any decent studio...AV123 and even some projects from PE done by D'Appolito sounds very good for the money and employs drivers that rival if not better any Axiom drivers for less...Remeber that just because one company manufacture drivers, doesn't make them better than others, to manufacture drivers is indeed a way of lower costs in some cases and in others just to get a reliable quality and availability overtime...and rarely about the specs...driver technologies are about a century old now if not more...

Read here a little over the lines, from the engineer of McIntosh Audio:

Those prices are IMO symbolic prices to stop upgraditis, and force to buy the new models, that God knows if indeed sound better...we are trusting their ears not ours...and do not forget that audio is not just a sum of elements, geometry, real state, of the room etc...plays a very important role in the sound at the end....I have seen very good speakers sod miserable in odd shaped rooms, while others less expensive will shine

I, for one, have no idea what you are trying to say with your reference to Roger Russell's self serving web site but in any event when did Axiom ever commit to sell you new components, at whatever price, should they ever have an upgrade? I am unaware of another major speaker manufacturer (or assembler) who would even offer for them for sale. When you purchase consumer electronics these days you should have no reasonable expectation that the product will be current a year later and, btw, no one is forcing you to buy anything! I think you are being unreasonable.

Sovkiller, even if they were selling the drivers at $20 the modifications would still be very expensive for the M80 because of it having so many drivers. The extent of the "improvement" of these new components has not even been explained so you will be purchasing on incomplete information anyways on the benefits involved over the ti/v2 versions. Also take into consideration the special tools, labour and time involved in making these modifications. Personally, I don't find it attractive at all.

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I’m armed and I’m drinking. You don’t want to listen to advice from me, amigo.

Sovkiller, even if they were selling the drivers at $20 the modifications would still be very expensive for the M80 because of it having so many drivers. The extent of the "improvement" of these new components has not even been explained so you will be purchasing on incomplete information anyways on the benefits involved over the ti/v2 versions. Also take into consideration the special tools, labour and time involved in making these modifications. Personally, I don't find it attractive at all.

Dr. House....I totally agree with you on that information is not even complete as to take the plug, and as I said before, the benefits are always relative of what you may like or not, and the acoustics of your room...we do not know yet if it is even worth the upgrade or not. Personally the work do not worries me, of course assuming that the drivers will fit in the same holes, and mechanically are alike or similar at least, if any other type of labor, as routing again the openings is involved, I honestly prefer not to get into that myself...but at $20 a pop, I could give it a try and see, but at $1100 a set, everybody will definitelly pass...

Dundas my only purpose of showing that site was to illustrate the reason behind some manufacturers to get into the production of their own drivers, and why not a little bit of history of the audio and speaker manufacture, for the ones interested, and it is not only becasue of they can get better quality, most of the times they do not, but they do get availability when they need them on time, and better quality control over what they can do...nothing else...Sorry if you misunderstood me...

As per the comitment of selling drivers or not, Axiom did not, as nobody does...but in my humble opinion, if they decided to offer it (they could refuse and end of the story) at least make the prices reasonable, so the offer should have some validity, otherwise it is just a joke to say we did it, but you have to be crazy to spend more than a new set on them...

It is like saying you will do a benefit concert for some kind of charity, and charge for the tickets $1000.00...Hey I'm very nice to donate my time and effort, just gimme a call to prepare everything while you have the Madison Square Garden sold out!!!

And yes there are many manufacturers that sell drivers, of course if you tell them, that yours are blown away, and the speaker is out of warranty, as they prefer to sell them, that ship back and forth a set of speakers the size of the M80's toget a repair done...I ahve done that several times, not one, Infinity, Alesis, Yamaha, are among the ones I recall now...

Edited by Sovkiller (07/15/1007:52 PM)

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According to my little experience and my previous purchases, and not trying to play smart here, just being realistic, a very reasonable price for this tweeter will be no more than $20-25...I encourage anybody to sell one alone for that price to see how many you will sell, honestly I doubt they will sell any...The mids no more than $30.00 and the woofers $30-45, any version, regular baskets sound as good as die cast nowadays if well designed...Any software to design a crossover or even if you commission any audio guru to design them for you, will cost you less, part for those will not cost you an arm and a leg either. I replaced all the parts in my previous crossovers in the M3ti and the parts were real cheap, nothing like a good mill non inductive resistor, or any fancy audiophile grade cap there enither...I replaced all of the parts from under 25 bucks shipped...did they sounded better after? Probably not, but at least I feel I was using a better product...

I do not think that there is any other reason behind those prices, other than to discourage people from the upgrades...of course that is a right they have, and we all take it or leave it, but I will never get drivers at those prices for sure, if any of mine blow away after warranty, and I hope not, I will rather replace all of them by other drivers, rather than paying those prices for proprietary drivers with no known specs...

They are not the most expensive drivers ever, of course, but they are not cheap at all, and the there are other alternatives for those drivers that may sound as good (if not better) for less...as i said before, I have never paid more than 25 for a good tweeter, and have heard quite a few, of course you can pay up to 200 for them as well, but are not in that same league, just compare prices with similar drivers and you will have your numbers...

Having said that all that rest to me is again thanks Axiom for the sound, they do sound good, that is true and they offer very good value for the money, I'm as satisfied with my V2 as the same day I got them, can I upgrade them? Well probably yes, but not at that price point...unless a DIY or any custom project and I do not have the time nor the space tools for that neither...But do not forget that you get what you paid for, in some cases with more fairness than in others, and in the case of Axiom I do consider that I paid a very fair price for them, to the point, that rather than upgrading to any other brand I was thinking in keeping things in tha house and upgrade this to the V3, unfortunately for us, not an option at these prices...

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No doubt that getting older is madatory, but to mature still remains optional...Join the M80's team!